


talks like a gentleman

by astrolesbian



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: M/M, The Camping Trip, also he says fuck a lot, ed trying to figure out what feelings are, they are teenagers and don't know what romance is but they try their hardest and THAT'S what matters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 15:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14168298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrolesbian/pseuds/astrolesbian
Summary: Relax,” the intruder says. “It’s just me.”Ed gets a better look, and sees a black ponytail and a sharp jaw, then looks away again, cheeks hot as he sits back down and starts hunting for another rock to throw. “Yeah,” he says. “Which you is that, exactly?”“Don’t be a dick,” he answers, and sits down next to him, cross-legged and casual, starting to sift around in the sand for his own stone. Ed makes an educated guess.“Ling?” he asks. It comes out quieter than he’d meant it, more hopeful. Ling smiles in that sun-bright way he has, and Ed’s heart stutters. Stupid, stupid.





	talks like a gentleman

Ed still catches himself looking at Greed, sometimes. It’s always for too long, in quiet stretches that the homunculus himself either doesn’t notice or doesn’t mention. If he does it, Ed always swears under his breath and looks away, only to find himself doing it again later. It’s still Ling’s face, that's the thing, it's Ling’s broad shoulders and unfair height, even if paired with a too-sharp smile and cold eyes, and there are still a lot of unknown quantities stuttering around in Ed’s chest and stomach whenever he looks at him. He sort of hates him for being such an ambitious dumbass and letting Father put the Stone in him in the first place, he sort of hates him for not fighting harder and just letting Greed walk around in his body like he fucking owns it, he sort of misses him a whole fucking lot, especially when he thinks of Gluttony’s stomach and the hours they spent in there alone, together, before finding Envy, talking ‘til they were hoarse into the empty air.

He has also, sort of, had several dreams in the past few months about kissing him. Ling, not Greed. Ling as he used to be, with a cheerful smile and a yellow coat and a fucking irritating talent for climbing in hotel windows. Ling was a stubborn, ambitious, idiotic prince, but he had a smile that gave Ed all kinds of heartburn, and Ed hadn’t known what to do with that feeling then, and knows even less now.

Mostly, though, Ling was just really hot, which was frustrating enough when Greed wasn’t part of the whole equation. Now it’s a non-issue, or at least it should be, but Ed’s got a stupid-fast brain and he’s got a lot of time on his hands. Whenever he isn’t worrying about Al and Winry he’s wondering what Ling’s mouth would feel like on his neck, and it’s driving him fucking nuts. He wishes he could blame it on puberty, something clean and biological, but he’s seventeen and he’s been through that shit already, so the only explanation is _feelings._

He can imagine Al laughing at him in that kind but dickish way that little brothers do. Ed can’t be mad at this imaginary version of Al for doing so, though. It’s supremely idiotic and very fucking _him_ to meet a _prince_ from fucking _Xing,_ a country across the desert, and want—

Well. Whatever it is that he wants. He hasn’t really figured that part out yet.

He throws a pebble out over the river.

They’re near a town this week, because they needed provisions. Ed did the whole ‘hide his hair and wander around’ thing for a little while, but there wasn’t a library or anything _good_ here, so he headed out to the riverside instead, and found a little piece of ground that’s hidden from the main road but overlooks the water. He’s been tossing rocks for the past few minutes, trying to fight the urge to go into town and call Granny and ask if she’s heard from Al, at all, _anything_ —

He can imagine her voice, crackly from the phone and grumpy from her personality. _Didja lose your own fucking brother, Ed?_

Granny only swears when he’s done something particularly dumb, but he thinks this situation — everything about it — would warrant that. Being on the run from the government, even though he only joined the government in the first place to _avoid_ that. Losing contact with Al and Winry. Camping out here in the woods with a couple of chimeras and a (possibly?) evil homunculus. Wanting to kiss a prince of Xing.

He throws another rock and it skips three times.

“Good shot.”

The hair on the back of his neck stands up and he scrambles backwards. “The _fuck_ —”

“Relax,” the intruder says. “It’s just me.”

Ed gets a better look, and sees a black ponytail and a sharp jaw, then looks away again, cheeks hot as he sits back down and starts hunting for another rock to throw. “Yeah,” he says. “Which you is that, exactly?”

“Don’t be a dick,” he answers, and sits down next to him, cross-legged and casual, starting to sift around in the sand for his own stone. Ed makes an educated guess.

“Ling?” he asks. It comes out quieter than he’d meant it, more hopeful. Ling smiles in that sun-bright way he has, and Ed’s heart stutters. Stupid, stupid.

“Yup. For a little while, anyway.”

“What happened?”

Ling shrugs and locates a rock, angling it so it skips across the water twice before falling in. “He gets tired, sometimes. We have an arrangement.”

“An arrangement,” Ed repeats, dubiously.

Ling shrugs again and actually looks at him. “He doesn’t need to sleep,” he says. “Or, he didn’t need it before, I suppose. But my body is still human, even if what’s in it is inhuman. We both need time to rest. I just take over when he does.” He throws another rock. “It’s never for long. And he usually only lets me when the rest of you are sleeping.”

“You should have woken me up!”

Ling gives him this contemplative look. “You need a lot of sleep, Ed, and you haven’t been getting it lately,” he says. “You’re caring for Al’s body as well as your own.”

“Yeah, well,” Ed says. He’s painfully aware of that, every time he eats or moves or closes his eyes. It’s why he’s started trying to drink milk once in a while, even if milk is still objectively disgusting. The sight of Al’s body in the gate, his skin clinging to the bones of his ribs, is haunting. “You still could have done it.”

“I wanted to,” Ling says. “I miss talking to people besides him. But you look different when you sleep.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ed asks, and hopes to hell Ling can’t see the blush on his cheeks. It’s getting darker, the sun setting off to his left. He tries to imagine Ling sitting there in the darkness, everything utterly silent, watching Ed breathe. It’s—

Ling’s eyes on him are sharp, searching. He’s got a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Ed wants, desperately, to kiss him, and he doesn’t know what the fuck that means, whether it’s ill-placed lust or something deeper, something curled in his chest since meeting Ling and only now rearing its head. He wants to kiss him and he wants to stumble out of this clearing, run as far as his legs will take him.

He wishes he didn’t feel so goddamn guilty about it, about stopping for a second, about wishing he could let go. Every time he closes his eyes it’s a toss-up between seeing the lines of Al’s ribs and Ling’s laughing face and he wishes they didn’t both make his chest hurt, make his limbs heavy. It’s all in different ways, but it’s the same feeling. If he was a normal person this wouldn’t be so hard, but Ed has carried a brother and a secret and a lifetime of guilt on his back since age twelve and he doesn’t know how to let go of it long enough to kiss a boy by a river and hope for new beginnings.

“You look calmer,” Ling says, and looks away. “Only sometimes, though. Sometimes you dream, and you look—” He cuts himself off, and looks out over the water.

Ed doesn’t have any idea what he was about to say, but he hopes he hasn’t cried in front of him. Sometimes the nightmares suck and sometimes they _really_ suck, but crying in front of Ling would be horrible. Worse, somehow, than crying in front of Greed or the chimeras.

“Calmer?” he says. It’s easier to object to that part, mostly because he can make it into a joke. “How _dare_ you. I’m super calm all the time, asshole.”

Ling laughs and nudges him in the arm. “No, you’re not. Unless you’re asleep. Then your face just — I don’t know, it gets softer. Quieter. It’s how you look when you read something.”

“When I _read_ something?” Ed says. He wishes the idea of Ling knowing his expressions didn’t throw him for such a loop.

“Not every time,” Ling says. “But, you know, when you’re reading a book or something. You look calm, and happy.”

Ed stares at him.

“You also don’t know anything’s happening around you,” Ling says, hastily, rubbing the back of his neck. “I once came into your hotel room and had a fifteen-minute conversation with Alphonse while you were reading something, and you didn’t even realize I was there.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Ed says.

“Nope,” Ling says, and nudges him again. His grin is wide and white, and the setting sun is golden against his skin, and he has watched Ed enough to know how he looks when he reads.

 _Fuck,_ Ed thinks, with slowly rising panic and affection and worry, _fuck, fuck._ It’s one thing to want to kiss a prince and another to get his hopes up that said prince might want to kiss him back. It’s one thing to daydream and another to have this moment right in front of him, Greed out of the picture, Ling’s skin warm and gorgeous from the sun, Ling’s eyes fixed on his.

He looks away first and feels like a coward.

But Ling shifts, next to him, just barely, so that their shoulders are touching. His body is too warm, constantly overheated from the strength of a million other souls in it. Ed is wearing a jacket and a threadbare white button-down but it feels like nothing, and at the same time he knows if Ling touched his bare skin he wouldn’t be able to breathe, move, anything. He wants to sigh, and he wants to run, and he wants to lean into it. He can’t remember the last time someone sat next to him like this, the last time he felt some kind of human warmth. It might have been Winry, but Winry’s different, more like how it feels to be home, easy and comforting, and less like some vastly uncharted land, stretching out in front of him. The thing is, though, is that at his core, Ed’s always been a nomad, and the possibility of the endless open space that Ling offers with his shoulder against Ed’s is intoxicating.

“You’re out here because you miss Al,” Ling says. He doesn’t phrase it like a question. Ed wants to ask what the fuck he thinks he knows that for, but it’s true, is the thing; he misses Al like he missed his limbs when he first lost them. He pulls his knees to his chest and tucks his chin against them, staring out across the water.

“I don’t think I’m ever not missing Al,” he says. “Side effect of living out of each other’s pockets for so long, I guess.” He sighs, blowing his bangs out of his face. “But, yeah, I wish he was here. It’s weird not knowing what’s happening to him.”

Ling mirrors his position, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I like that you admit that kind of thing to me,” he says, softly. He’s not looking at Ed this time, which is perhaps the only reason Ed answers.

“What do you mean?”

“Darius asked you the other day whether you were worried about him,” Ling says. “You said no. You said he could take care of himself. But they don’t know you, they don’t realize you’ve been worried about him for weeks.” He smiles at Ed, a half-smile, because the moment is serious and because _Ling_ can be serious, too, when he needs to be. “I haven’t had many people in my life willing to trust me with secrets.”

“Yeah, well,” Ed says, his voice too soft again. “You’re my friend.”

“And they’re not?”

“You’re . . . different, all right? You’re — you’re you.”

When he glances over, Ling is grinning at him. “I’m me?”

“You know what I mean,” he says, and blushes, and looks away again.

“No, I don’t,” Ling says. “Tell me.”

Ed wonders what he could tell him that wouldn’t give him away. _You make me feel safe, but not like I’m standing still, like I’m moving in a thousand different directions at once, like I’m on a train and I can see the countryside going past me in a blur but I’m safe inside and I’m going somewhere amazing. You make my stomach hurt in a good way. I look at you and you look back and I want to do that for fucking forever, I want to never stop looking at you, and it scares the shit out of me. You’re one of the first friends I’ve made in a really long time that wasn’t ten years older than me. You’ve got a smile like an earthquake. It makes the ground move under my feet._

_I like you, I like you more than I know how to deal with, and I want—_

He still doesn’t fucking know what he wants.

“When I told you what we did,” he says, finally, “you didn’t pity me.”

Ling’s eyes widen, just a little. “Ed?”

He sounds awed, and after that it all comes out in a rush.

“Whenever I tell someone about trying to bring Mom back they always get this _look,_ ” Ed says. “Like — _oh, no, those poor dumb kids who didn’t know what they were doing. Look at them running around in circles and suffering_. That look always means they don’t believe me when I say we’re gonna get our bodies back, like we’re just kidding ourselves and they’re humoring us because the alternative is—”

He waves a hand. Ling is still staring, his shoulder still warm.

“But I told you, and you just _looked_ at me, but not like they do, you just — it was like you understood.” He ducks his head. “So, yeah. You’re different.”

“Ed,” Ling says, again, like he’s said something world-altering. He’s looking at Ed like he’s made of diamonds and Ed can’t breathe with it, with the full force of Ling’s attention on him. His eyes are black and warm and Ed could fall into them and their unknown quantities, their possibility.

“Shuddup,” Ed mutters, ducks his head against his knees again, to hide his blush.

Then Ling’s hand snakes out, grabbing tight to Ed’s, lacing their fingers together and not letting go. He is very determinedly not looking at him, just staring out across the water, into the sun setting. Ed can feel his heart pounding, and knows his palms have gone clammy. He also knows he’s staring at Ling, probably in a way that gives away everything he’s thinking and feeling and wanting. His jaw is sharp in the light, his skin still faintly golden. Ed thinks _fuck, fuck,_ because he’s sitting here in the near-darkness and he’s holding hands with a boy, and there’s also a weird feeling of tears welling in his throat, because this is so _normal._ He and Ling could be any two dumbass teenagers who snuck off here to the river.

He tries to imagine that. If they had been normal people, tossed by luck and some twist of fate into the same town. He tries to imagine Ling climbing in the window of the house he and Al used to live in, laughing and teasing him with that ground-shaking smile and no weight behind it, no country and no body to retrieve. Not a prince or an alchemist or anything important. Just kids.

He tightens his grip on Ling’s hand. He feels like he’s holding on in some vast current, like if he loosens even a little he’ll be swept away.

Across from them and to the left, the sun is going down.

“I miss Xing so much sometimes,” Ling says, whispered into the fading daylight like a secret. “But I don’t, not at times like this. I’m not allowed to be human when I’m home.”

And Ed thinks: _he gets it, all of it, every fucking inch of it._ He thinks: _if we were normal people I would kiss him right now, I would, I would._ He thinks: _I’m never gonna stop wanting to._

He thinks, terrifyingly:  _maybe I should._

He lifts his auto-mail arm and tosses another stone, and they watch it skip out over the water together, in silence.

“I just . . .” Ling trails off and hangs his head, a little. “I just wanted to tell you that. Because you said I understood it. Making up for your mistakes. Making things better. And I think you understand _me_ _,_ too, and that feeling of — of everyone wanting something from you that’s not yourself.” He makes a frustrated noise. “I can’t find the words for it.”

“No,” Ed says. “I get it.” He clears his throat, and he doesn’t let Ling’s hand go. “I don’t ever want something from you that’s not you. Or I hope I don’t, anyway.”

“No,” Ling says. “You don’t. That made me angry at first. I’m used to figuring out what people want and then being that person, but you — you like real things. Tangible things. Facts and figures, not words, because words can lie so easily.” There’s a shadow of a smile on his face again. “You’d make a terrible diplomat, for the record, but it was . . . refreshing.”

“Refreshing?” Ed says, a little amused.

Ling huffs out a laugh. “It was nice, all right? It was nice.”

“You think I’m nice?”

“I’m sitting here holding your hand,” Ling says. “I would _hope_ I think you’re nice.”

His verbal acknowledgement of what’s happening makes Ed grin, stupid and woozy, before he turns and looks at Ling. He isn’t sure what he wants to say, but he doesn’t want to leave this clearing or let go of Ling’s hand or attempt to go back to camp and act like things aren’t different. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ling says, grinning impishly — Ed can see it, can see the curve of his mouth, even in the darkness. Then Ling leans forward, quick and sure, and kisses him. His mouth is as warm as the rest of him.

Ed makes an embarrassing noise when he does it, which just makes Ling laugh and pull back a little to rest his forehead on Ed’s shoulder, still giggling.

“I hate you,” Ed mutters. “You’re such a fucking asshole.”

“You don’t hate me,” Ling says, smug, and then kisses him again, and this time he doesn’t draw back, and Ed kisses him too, and his mouth is more hot than warm, his free hand reaching up to cup Ed’s cheek. Ed has a brief moment of panic that is directly related to never having kissed anyone before, and also not being sure what to do with his free hand. Eventually, he ends up reaching up to the back of Ling’s head, brushing his metal thumb on a spot roughly behind his ear, and Ling shudders against him, and that’s — yeah. The night air is getting cold against Ed’s face but Ling is warm, and he kisses with easy determination, and his mouth is just as addictive as Ed had worried (and kind of hoped) it would be.

Then Ling pulls back, as quick as he leaned in. He’s smiling softly, gently, and his thumb moves against Ed’s cheekbone.

“There’s that look again,” he says, quietly. “Calm and happy.”

Then Ed smiles too, a little embarrassed and a lot fond. “I guess there’s a correlation between you being around and me being happy.”

“I think,” Ling says, snickering, “that _that_ was your very scientific way of saying you like me.”

“Don’t read too much into it,” Ed says, but squeezes his hand again, standing up and smiling at him. “I’m gonna need to do some more testing before we can confirm the theory.”

“You’re so dumb,” Ling says, but his mouth and his eyes are fond, happy. And Ed feels—

He still feels overwhelmed, and tired, but it’s an ache that’s lessened a little. And Ling is here, smiling at him, in that same smile that feels like an earthquake, that makes the whole world shift around him. And it’s enough.

“Takes one to know one, idiot prince,” he says. “C’mon. Let’s go back to camp.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> • you cannot convince me that edward elric would not swear like a fucking sailor okay he's seventeen and he has no adult supervision and al cannot currently make disproving faces at him  
> • i have a lot of Complicated Feelings on ling being gay and also feeling like he needs to be the person/emperor that his country requires  
> • darius and heinkel during this probably just notice they're both gone and are like Ah. Okay. fucking finally  
> • ed: confesses feelings by comparing it to a science experiment  
> me and ling: god he's a fucking idiot....i love him  
> • i might write a sequel if i get in the mood because i've been listening to king and lionheart a lot recently and i've been getting some edling feelings, also we didn't get any ling pov and missing the chance to have greed comment on their Teenage Romance would be tragic  
> • oh and title is from _when you were young_ by the killers


End file.
